The Fair Use Meme Goes Mainstream

Images by Manny Garcia/Shepard Fairey


Interesting stuff taking place with regards to one Shepard Fairey, whose ubiquitous poster of Barack Obama has become such a cultural phenom, it's being reinterpreted from all different angles by thousands of people. This process is nothing new for Fairey, a well known street artist whose reputation is checkered by charges of plagerism and unoriginality. Andy Warhol probably ran into similar criticisms as an artist, yet in retrospect, is today hailed as a pioneering artist and cultural icon. So one could argue the similarities between Warhol and Fairey, and argue that this type of "fair use" has been going on for quite some time.

Jasper Johns earned his legacy by lifting the national icon. Or Roy Lichtenstein, whose work hangs in the most important art museums in the world. Lichtenstein used oil and Magna paint in his best known works, such as Drowning Girl (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in DC Comics' Secret Hearts #83. (Drowning Girl now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art, New York).

This plays right into Larry Lessig's view of the remix. It's obvious to even the most casual observer that Fairey's poster was "inspired" by the photograph. Perhaps it was the composition, or it could have actually just been the ability to capture that exact moment with Obama that made that photo inspire Fairey to create his poster. But his poster definitely "reinvents" the photo, or perhaps a better word would be "the image" (and the photo just happened to capture the original image). In that sense, Fairey appropriated, and added artistic value to the image.

Also nice to see Dr. Lessig is on it.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that this huge cultural phenom is now going to be discussed in broader terms than just how cool the poster is. It will bring the debate into the mainstream in a manner that can be understood by the masses, and debate on this is a good thing. It's time for a larger discussion of intellectual property reform as technology enables more open, easy, and free widespread distribution of ideas.

bring it on.

Follow Me

or more accurately, follow my "Cool Music" virtual radio show, every week.

I added a new widget called "followers" to my blog for it. Just click the link on the right sidebar about halfway down. Come join the cool kids :)

Lessig vs. Colbert

"do not remix this". we all know how much we like being told what not to do.

Brad and I Visit Harvard

My buddy Brad Sucks and I are featured in the latest podcast from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a research group based at Harvard Law School whose purpose and mission is to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. They represent a network of faculty, students, fellows, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and virtual architects working to identify and engage with the challenges and opportunities of cyberspace.

The podcast features Brad's original title track from his latest CD "Fake It", as well as my remix of Shannon Hurley's "We Are In Love".

Slices of the Digital Music Business

I found this cool presentation online. Some interesting facts, well designed, very professional. Guess who's also in it?

If you click that little thing in the top right corner, you can see it full screen. and blow it up. pretty cool little app.

Slices of the Digital Music Business Early 2008 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Fake it with Brad Sucks

My friend Brad Sucks was featured in one of the early remixfights (Number 11). Brad’s new CD is coming out next week and we’ve brought him back for an encore performance, and he’s given us first crack at remixing “Fake It”, one of the soon to be released tracks on the new CD.

Check out Brad’s website and pick up a copy of his new CD on September 9th!

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This month over on Remixfight, we are featuring remixes of David Barnes reading "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights", the ground-breaking document ratified by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. It defines the fundamental rights of individuals, and exhorts all governments to protect these rights. The UN has translated the document into over three hundred languages and dialects. David Barnes is a frequent contributor to LibriVox, an amazing online resource that is reproducing many of the world's most important written documents from the public domain into spoken word tracks available without licensing restriction through LibriVox. Check out the remixes and please share the link and spread the word. The Olympics take place next week in Beijing and the timing for this could not be more appropriate. Thanks to mixter regulars Gurdonark, Radiotimes, Minus Kelvin, and everyone that participated. Help us spread the word!

Artwork by Ralph Steadman.

Cool Music

I'm going to start doing a weekly virtual radio show which will highlight my favorite tracks over on ccmixter. It seems like so much gets submitted these days, it's hard to keep track of it all since it gets lost and buried kind of quickly. So each week, I'm going to go back through the past week's submissions and share my favorites. They might not be the best for everybody but they're the best I came up with, and I'm hoping to also try to highlight the wide diversity of the artists there, and show how all styles and genres of music are accepted and embraced.

also thanks to teru for the intro of my dreams. there's no way a better intro could be created, therefore it will become the permanent intro.

Shannon's Songs

I've been remixing alot of Shannon Hurley, a very talented singer songwriter. "Overboard" is a pretty straightforward pop remix. "We are in Love" channeled my inner Burt Bacharach with some exceptional flugelhorn. Finally, I channeled my inner Tom Petty for "Where I Stand". Enjoy.



photo: curran clark photography

Hit me baby one more time

So I had this Britney pella laying around and I was bored so I did a bit of googling and found the bpm and decided to throw some drums and bass behind it. Then I found this sample pack by Bucky Jonson of the Black Eyed Peas and took the acoustic guitar track and made it electric, and added some his cool trumpet samples in the bridge.

Hit me baby one more time - Britney Spears remixed

Histoire de Rien

ditto ditto, a fellow mixter, recorded a terrific little pop tune with his friend barbarella called "Histoire de Rien". He's also graciously offered it up for the next remixfight, so head over and download the source for this very cool tune and get your remix on!

Here's something I threw together that uses just the source material for this.

Lies

Lies is one of my latest remixes of a track of the same name by Trifonic, who released their recent album into the CC domain. Some really nice vocal work by Amelia June on this.

I also took the vocals and a bit more from one of their other tracks, "Good Enough", and did a mash-up with the guitar track from Narva 9's "Walk On", and also integrating part's of the Walk On vocal line as a bridge. Walk on by your side also features a bit of Brad Sucks doing some lala drone work.

Finally, I threw a nice little piece together featuring some really good stems from Admiral Bob, with a bit of c.layne vocal work as icing. Enjoy Admiral Bob on the Bridge.

Albert Hofmann Remixfight

Dr. Albert Hofmann, who passed away yesterday, was a Swiss scientist best known for having been the first to synthesize, ingest and communicate the strong hallucinogenic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann authored more than 100 scientific articles and wrote a number of books, including “LSD: My Problem Child”. The speech he gave called “LSD and the Nature of Reality” was presented before the international conference “Hallucinogens, Shamanism and Modern Life” in San Francisco on the afternoon of Saturday, September 30, 1978. We're going to remix it this month on Remixfight! and you're invited to join us.

While you're over there, check out all the great remixes of Lux Divon's "Doctor P". Mine's called "The Doctored P", any no it's not about some random drug test.

Superfly

New remix alert! I took an old familiar vocal track that I had previously remixed and paired it up with an old familiar sample pack that I had previously remixed and came up with Superfly, matching a pitch shifted Jason Brock with the funk that is fourstones.

Speaking of fourstones, there's still a week to create your own remix of this sample pack and take on the mighty mixers of Remixfight! Game on, at least for another week.

Enjoy.

Balloon Flights

I've got a couple new remixes happening as we speak over on Remixfight!

The "Syntax Collapse Mix" is a pretty straight-forward remix of The Grammar Club's song "Balloon Flight".

"Lunatic" is a mash-up featuring DJ Blue, DJ Snyder, Beefy, and KCentric.

Check out all the cool remixes over on Remixfight! and pick your fave!

Anaxagoras

blocSonic is a net label that produces very cool online compilation packages of new CC licensed audio and video, complete with downloadable packaging and artwork. One of my remixes made it on to their recent compilation Anaxagoras. "Caught by the Hard Moonlight" features a couple friends from ccmixter, the words and vocals of Omni Vista and guitar from HC-7.

Remixfight!

I've kind of stepped in and taken over the admin duties at Remixfight!, mostly because I refuse to see it die a slow and painful death. Again. When it first began, it suffered from a lack of administrative oversight after the first few fights, and I stepped in and took it over. This was around 2004. Collectively, we (the community) brought it back from the brink. Then, we got hacked by some malicious virus that took the site down, and Future Boy rebuilt it into what it looks like today. He put in his time, and now I'm back to putting in mine.

This month, we're featuring The Grammar Club, a bunch of really talented guys, some of whom are friends of mine and some of whom I've never met but seem like cool and talented guys. You can remix their new song Balloon Flight by getting the source files here. Go grab some grammar club and cuss like a sailor!

I also did a recent remix of Brooklyn's finest, Clarance Boddyker, mashing up one of his pellas with a backing track by Sippy Cup. Check out Silly - Boddyker vs. Sippy Cup, as I try to play peacemaker over at ccmixter.

Enjoy.

This One's For You Baby

So the wrappings off the "Purple Reign" project, so it's safe to post my 2 new songs. Also attributed to my alter ego (that shite guy).

"Baby" features Johnny Cashpoint trading vocals with me, all music by me.

"For You" features my friends Phil and Heather doing guitar and vocals respectively, Phil Wages throwing in his unique falsetto stylings, and some excellent wah guitar from Code. Everything else is by me.

Check them out. They're for you baby.

The Apathetic Dirtbag

I threw together a new mashup of C. Layne's vocal tracks from "Apathy is Invincibility" with Brad Sucks "Dirtbag".

I think the image above speaks for itself.

The Apathetic Dirtbag - MC Jack in the Box (featuring Brad Sucks and C. Layne)

Black Coffee

I've got a new remix. It's called "Black Coffee". Check it out.

I was intending to post this on ccmixter, as I downloaded the vocal track from there a while back, but since I downloaded it, there were some publishing issues with it and it got pulled from the site. So this particular remix may or may not include source material from hemeleen aka Helene. It does include moaning i lifted from one of Songboy's tracks on ccmixter. It was originally written in 1948.